AI, Memory and the Politics of the Archive
A 60-minute webinar with Melisa Kayowa and Evans Akanyijuka
- DATE: 18th September 2026 (exact time tbt, around 12:00 CET)
- DURATION: 60 minutes
- FORMAT: Live online webinar
- LEVEL: No AI or coding experience required
- LOCATION: Online, link to be provided at later date
How does artificial intelligence participate in artistic research when the archive is incomplete, displaced or deliberately constructed? In this 60-minute webinar, Melisa Kayowa and Evans Akanyijuka bring their complementary practices into dialogue. Kayowa’s Territoires tissés explores Congolese cultural memory, Kuba material culture, provenance and speculative reconstruction, while Akanyijuka’s LORAs as an Archive, A Living Archive examines photography, collaborative datasets, AI bias and generative memory. Together, they ask what machines remember, who has the authority to interpret an archive, and how artists can use—or refuse—AI responsibly. Melisa will speak in French, with real-time French-to-English translation provided.
Overview
This one-hour webinar brings together Melisa Kayowa and Evans Akanyijuka to examine how artificial intelligence participates in artistic research through archives, memory, representation and cultural authority. Drawing on their complementary S+T+ARTS Afropean Intelligence projects, the session moves beyond AI-generated outputs to focus on the human, material, institutional and computational decisions that shape what machines can remember, interpret and reproduce.
Language and access
The webinar will be bilingual. Evans Akanyijuka will present in English Melisa Kayowa will speak in French, and real-time French-to-English translation will be provided during her presentation and the shared discussion. Live captions are also recommended for the full session.
Webinar objectives
- Introduce two situated artistic practices that critically engage AI, archives and cultural memory.
- Explore how provenance, consent, bias, classification and institutional power shape AI systems.
- Compare displaced cultural objects and speculative reconstruction with collaborative datasets and generative archives.
- Offer participants practical principles for responsible AI use, or deliberate refusal, within artistic and cultural research.
Programme
|
Time |
Segment |
Content |
|
0:00–0:05 |
Welcome |
Introduction, framing question and explanation of bilingual format. |
|
0:05–0:18 |
Melisa Kayowa |
Territoires tissés: Kuba material culture, provenance, absence, restitution, weaving and speculative reconstruction. |
|
0:18–0:31 |
Evans Akanyijuka |
LORAs as an Archive, A Living Archive: photography, collaborative dataset selection, AI bias and generative memory. |
|
0:31–0:46 |
Moderated dialogue |
What does the machine remember? Reconstruction versus invention; access versus authority; archive as relationship. |
|
0:46–0:56 |
Audience Q&A |
Questions from participants, with real-time translation maintained as required. |
|
0:56–1:00 |
Closing |
One possibility, one responsibility and one form of knowledge that should remain outside computation. |
Speaker contributions
|
Melisa Kayowa Will lead the discussion on material and embodied knowledge, weaving as a research method, provenance, restitution, displaced cultural objects and ancestral memory. Her contribution will foreground the relationships among source communities, artistic interpretation and collecting institutions. |
Evans Akanyijuka Will lead the discussion on photography, collaborative archives, dataset selection, LoRA models, AI bias and interactive systems. His contribution will emphasise the visibility of generative processes and the collective decisions through which an AI archive is constituted. |
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This webinar is based upon work from COST Action Artistic Intelligence — Responsiveness, Accessibility, Responsibility, Equity (ARTinRARE), CA23158, supported by COST (European Cooperation in Science and Technology). COST (European Cooperation in Science and Technology) is a funding agency for research and innovation networks. Our Actions help connect research initiatives across Europe and enable scientists to grow their ideas by sharing them with their peers. This boosts their research, career and innovation.
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